Why are christians morally inferior to atheists

[logician]

"Outside of God's Oneness, nothing exists. "

In a chaotic multiverse, there existence of a god is superfluous.

 

[UnTheist]

So if it isn't, it's because there is a reason for it's appearing to exist.

No, it's because your God merely wants Evil to exist.

 

[TheKnight]

"Outside of God's Oneness, nothing exists. "

In a chaotic multiverse, there existence of a god is superfluous.

No, it's because your God merely wants Evil to exist.

I suppose you could say that would be an appropriate conclusion all things considered.

 

[logician]

I suppose you could say that would be an appropriate conclusion all things considered.

Possibly it is better to say that if matter and energy have existed forever, there is not need for a creator god.

 

[TheKnight]

Possibly it is better to say that if matter and energy have existed forever, there is not need for a creator god.

Have they?

 

[logician]

Have they?

All current cosmological theories are pointing in that direction.

 

[TheKnight]

All current cosmological theories are pointing in that direction.

Hmm.And surely you do not think that God could not be above a multiverse?

 

[logician]

Hmm.And surely you do not think that God could not be above a multiverse?

I don't believe a god exists at all.

 

[Autodidact]

So if it isn't, it's because there is a reason for it's appearing to exist.

Yeah, like that God is not omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. Or, that God doesn't exist. Either of those explains it fully.

I would agree with this actually. People can (and do) live moral lives without religion too. However, (just like with not having an innate sense of morality) it is not optimal to be areligious.

Again, back on the actual planet, do you observe religious people behaving more morally than non-religious people?

Good point. I should rephrase it to say "Without religious morality, why should I act in a way that benefits others' health as if I care that they get hurt?"

Because it hurts you, them, and the world.

Evil appears to exist. But so do I. In fact, all sorts of things appear to exist. Appearance of existence is not existence. Outside of God's Oneness, nothing exists.

I see. Now we're in a land where you don't exist, I don't exist, and this computer doesn't exist. Yeah, you're right. In that land, evil doesn't exist either. Meanwhile, back here in the actual world, the one normal people live in and talk about, aka the real world (where I thought you lived also, until I read your post) you, me, the computer and evil all exist.

In case you did not know, Judaism is a panentheistic religion. Therefore in the small picture evil exists, and in the big picture it does not.

In case you did not know, I've forgotten more about Judaism then you will ever know. While it is possible to interpret Judaism in that way, it is not the mainstream view. Classically, Judaism is seen as monotheistic.

In any case, if your view is Panentheistic, then we exist--you, me, the computer, and evil, all within "God's oneness," if that's how you see the world.

This alone is not enough, however, because we are in the small picture and are obligated to act in the small picture. Therefore we must realize that there are conditions within the big picture (following the Torah) that optimize living in the small picture.

Fascinating, and utterly irrelevant. Cuz in the small picture (the only one we have) we see evil.

He could. He does not. That's our job.

Therefore He is not omnibenevolent. Because if He were, He would not create evil.

I don't think evil is good. Evil in good are a dichotomy that only exists if you do not recognize the Oneness of essential existence.

What a crock. Oneness, twoness, or threeness, it has bad stuff in it.

Of course, as we went over in the other thread, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with any action.

You mean, as you keep asserting, without effect or persuasion.

I have not, in this or any thread, called evil good. The closest of have come to saying that is saying that there is no such thing as evil or good. They only exist in relation to each other.

Duh.

And that relationship is determined individually by finite parameters that we place on events.

Whatever this is supposed to mean. Can I get you a nice vinaigrette for your word salad?

You're stating an argument that, while it is certainly effective, isn't really accurate. The mother who thinks it was evil for her 5 year old to be abducted, raped, killed and her body left in a field to rot is deceiving herself.

You are one cold-hearted *******.

For two reason, for one, actions don't have intrinsic moral value. So, it would be more honest for her to say that she doesn't like those things (which is most certainly the case). Secondly, it's not evil for anyone to be anything. It is not evil for me to be a sociopath, or a heterosexual or a homosexual or black or white etc etc etc. It is not evil for her daughter to have been abducted. If anything would be described as evil, it would be the fact that someone abducted, raped, and murder her daughter

What are you blathering on about? Although I shouldn't be surprised that someone who condones child-murder wouldn't have a problem with a little rape-resulting-in-death.

Do you realize that your twisted logic has now gotten you into a position where you have to deny that someone abducting, raping and murdering a child is evil? That's the world your God created. You can have Him.

Besides, why must we classify the actions of the abductor/rapist/murderer as evil in order to say that it is undesirable? The act of taking a life is not intrinsically evil. It is an action and it's morality changes based on context. The act of engaging in sexual activity is not intrinsically evil. It too is an action and it's morality changes based on context. The same with transporting one person from one place to another.

And once again, we see, as is always the case, that any discussion of morality with a religionists devolves into pure moral relativism, without good and evil, in which there are no moral standards whatsoever. Good job.

For instance, a terrorist is shooting at American soldiers because he feels that he is protecting his homeland from people who want, against his will, to change it. The Americans who are being fired on are firing back because they wish to fight for the freedom of all those people whose rights are being taken away by oppressive regimes.

Which one of these men is evil?

Neither. But they may both be doing evil things.

Context determines whether or not an action is moral, and different people have different ideas of which contexts create moral and immoral actions. As a religious person, it is only logically consistent for me to say that without religiously determined morality, a person cannot have a form of morality that is optimal because I believe that religious morality is optimal.

Well yeah, but since you're wrong, you should probably stop being a religious person. Just using you as an example, you cannot condemn child murder or child-rape, due to your twisted religious logic. Why not give it up and return to the world of morality?

My point in all this is not that a person cannot be moral without religion. As I have already said, this is not true. My point is that it's not illogical for a religious person to say that areligious people cannot have a moral system.

Could you squeeze a couple more negatives in there?

Yes, it is illogical for a religious person to say that non-religious people cannot have a moral system. It is also false.

 

[Autodidact]

I suppose you could say that would be an appropriate conclusion all things considered.

Therefore your God is evil.

 

[Autodidact]

Hmm.And surely you do not think that God could not be above a multiverse?

Surely I don't even know what this is trying to mean, or how adding the word "surely" adds anything to its meaningless but pomposity.

 

[TheKnight]

I don't believe a god exists at all.

Oh...well that's unfortunate.

Yeah, like that God is not omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. Or, that God doesn't exist. Either of those explains it fully.

If you take away the fact that He is omnibenevelant then there is no problem. Truthfully, we cannot describe God at all. That includes saying He exists. So how can we know that He is omnibenevolent?

Again, back on the actual planet, do you observe religious people behaving more morally than non-religious people?

No. I see people behaving as people. My point was not that the religious are more moral, but that it is a reasonable conclusion to make as a religious person.

Because it hurts you, them, and the world.

I kill another human. That hurts them and the world. Not me. If it doesn't hurt me, why should I care?

I just thought I'd note that I don't actually think this way (since you don't seem to be able to comprehend the concept of Devil's Advocate).

In case you did not know, I've forgotten more about Judaism then you will ever know. While it is possible to interpret Judaism in that way, it is not the mainstream view. Classically, Judaism is seen as monotheistic.

Judaism is seen as a lot of things. Judging the content of something by how it is seen speaks nothing of its actual character.

Therefore He is not omnibenevolent. Because if He were, He would not create evil.

Is it still evil if He creates a solution to evil?

For instance, if I enhance certain damaging traits in a group of bacteria but then create a drug that will enhance your immune system so that it will be able to fight the bacteria, then is it still evil?

After all, if I were to expose your immune system to the bacteria and then add the drug then your immune system would be stronger as a result.

I would propose that God created evil and created mankind as it's solution.

Why not just create good? Because the greatest good would be to be like God and the sole thing that separates God (and us) from the rest of creation is the fact that we have freedom of choice. It's not free choice if both choices aren't equal. If everything were good, then we would have been given good. When evil exists in contrast to good, then we choose good.

You mean, as you keep asserting, without effect or persuasion.

I explained it to you. You didn't want to accept it as true. That's fine, it just means you value your ideas and beliefs above what might actually be true.

You are one cold-hearted *******. What are you blathering on about? Although I shouldn't be surprised that someone who condones child-murder wouldn't have a problem with a little rape-resulting-in-death.

Do you realize that your twisted logic has now gotten you into a position where you have to deny that someone abducting, raping and murdering a child is evil? That's the world your God created. You can have Him.

*sighs* Again you fail to misunderstand the concept of Devil's Advocate. My point is not that abducting/rape/murder isn't wrong. My point is that it's not intrinsically evil. The worse thing you can say about it is that it hurts someone and makes the quality of their lives go down. To which I could ask why I should care. It does not make the actions intrinsically (meaning that their very nature is) evil.

And once again, we see, as is always the case, that any discussion of morality with a religionists devolves into pure moral relativism, without good and evil, in which there are no moral standards whatsoever. Good job.

People like you (people who have this need to label things rather then simply practically relating to them or, when using them in communication, explaining them in their simplest form) are the same kind of people who will say that homosexuals should be killed. People who just have to have these clearly defined, clear cut labels of what is and isn't.

There are moral standards, God gave perfect moral standards 3300 years ago to the Jews at Sinai.

Neither. But they may both be doing evil things.

And what makes the things their doing evil things? Is there some sort of secret evil-o-meter that you have that lets you know if something is or isn't evil?

You keep talking about my character as if that makes the answer to this question obvious. However, you haven't actually explained how murdering an innocent person is intrinsically evil.

Sure, you could say "it should be obvious that murder is evil" but that doesn't help all those people who don't see it as evil.

Why not give it up and return to the world of morality?

The whole point of this thread is the fact that the religious assert that your world has no morals. My world has morality that is clearly defined by God (a morality that forbids child-rape and baby-killing). Yours on the other hand is a world where moral judgments are made illogically and based on fleeting emotional whims.

 

[Sahar]

Objectively, do atheists actually behave less morally than theists?

For example, is there a powerful atheist organization that perpetrates systematic child abuse, including child sexual abuse, protects and defends the perpetrators, and escapes criminal liability through its immense influence and power? There is at least one such religious organization, the Catholic Church.

Are the world's jails filled with atheists? Or theists? Do you know?

The men who get caught having inappropriate sexual affairs with their interns, campaign workers, underage Congressional pages, and everyone else in the neighborhood, are they atheists? Or theists?

And the people who killed themselves and 3000 other innocent people on September 11, 2001--theists, or atheists?

I never said that the believer's behavior is moral from his birth to his grave. Moreover, at some point he might justify his immorality. But belief in God/religion provides a universal absolute standard for morality (and hence humanity). Religion provided the notion that human beings enjoy free will and thus able to differentiate between what's right and what's wrong. So when an individual justify the immoral behavior (that is according to him might be moral), still religion can be the fixed moral reference for the individuals or the society as a whole.

In contrast to the notion that everything is relative (maybe this is the only absolute?), and the definitions of morality are only subjected to the materialistic reality that is in continuous change and hence moral definitions change accordingly.
We are programmed to act according to our biology and genetics, thus we don't enjoy free will to differentiate between what's right and wrong, we are only DNA and neuro circles and wires (ie material) and a group of instincts that are subjected to the natural law like any other being in the universe. Nothing is actually sacred.

For example, if religion was taking out of the equation (or remnants of religion), what would stop an individual from having sex with his sister/brother, his mother/father with taking all the precautions? Moreover, what would stop the society from allowing such relation?

N.B: I apologize if my choosing of words is not proper, I just tried my best to translate what is in my mind into English.

 

[Sahar]

So we see now in the societies that threw religion away that new definitions are given, (and humanity history is completely ignored or rejected as there is nothing called universal humanity/morality), for example the definition of the family now can be one man and children, one woman and children, two men and children, two women and children or two men, a woman and children.

 

[Storm]

I never said that the believer's behavior is moral from his birth to his grave. Moreover, at some point he might justify his immorality. But belief in God/religion provides a universal absolute standard for morality (and hence humanity).

But it doesn't. It only passes the buck to supply someone else's subjective standards for morality, so that you don't have to think about it.

Religion provided the notion that human beings enjoy free will and thus able to differentiate between what's right and what's wrong.

Whether or not the concept of free will originated with religion, I don't know. Even if it did, it doesn't matter. It's been around long enough that it's in the philosophical equivalent of public domain.

 

[Fortunato]

I never said that the believer's behavior is moral from his birth to his grave. Moreover, at some point he might justify his immorality. But belief in God/religion provides a universal absolute standard for morality (and hence humanity). Religion provided the notion that human beings enjoy free will and thus able to differentiate between what's right and what's wrong. So when an individual justify the immoral behavior (that is according to him might be moral), still religion can be the fixed moral reference for the individuals or the society as a whole.

In contrast to the notion that everything is relative (maybe this is the only absolute?), and the definitions of morality are only subjected to the materialistic reality that is in continuous change and hence moral definitions change accordingly.
We are programmed to act according to our biology and genetics, thus we don't enjoy free will to differentiate between what's right and wrong, we are only DNA and neuro circles and wires (ie material) and a group of instincts that are subjected to the natural law like any other being in the universe. Nothing is actually sacred.

For example, if religion was taking out of the equation (or remnants of religion), what would stop an individual from having sex with his sister/brother, his mother/father with taking all the precautions? Moreover, what would stop the society from allowing such relation?

N.B: I apologize if my choosing of words is not proper, I just tried my best to translate what is in my mind into English.

I would say that nothing that society or religion does can totally prevent a person from having sex with their family members. What does stop the vast majority of people from performing such acts, are not words written in some religious text, but peoples inherent sense of what is right and wrong. You use that same internal sense of right and wrong when you determine that your faith is good.

If you honestly believe that morality can only come from god, then which god? There are thousands of religions out there to choose from. It's immoral for Hindu's of different castes to intermarry. Is that the moral system god wants? The Old Testament condones slavery. Is that the moral system god wants? The Aztecs thought it was moral to sacrifice infants to their gods. Is that the moral system god wants?

1) If you say that all religions have equal moral claim, then there is no such thing as an absolute or universal morality. All that you'd be left with is the idea that your god will judge these other people by your religions morality once they're dead.
2) If you discount these other religions and say that your religion is the only true religion, then you have limited your perception of what is moral to your religion, and are therefore saying that all other religions cannot provide a moral system and are inherently immoral.
3) If you've narrowed it down to your religion, then what about all the different branches and divisions within it? Christianity has Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, and others. Judaism has Orthodox Judaism, Hasidic Judaism, Conservative Judaism, and others. Islam has Sunni, Shi'a, Sufism, and others. Are the denominations outside of yours immoral? If they are immoral, then you've limited your perception of god's morality yet again. If the others are OK, then there is no difference which of them you follow.
4) How have people's interpretation of morality within your own particular religious denomination changed over the past 1000 years? If god's morality is absolute and unchanging, then it shouldn't have changed at all. But most denominations are constantly shifting their views on morality and reinterpreting their religious texts to keep up with society. A good example of this is that most of the Abrahamic faiths at one point condoned slavery, but now most adherents of those faiths would find the idea of slavery immoral.
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The above examples demonstrate that morality and man-kinds interpretation of it can not be absolute. God's final judgment might be absolute, but the morality that man lives by isn't. If you still think that your religion is better than everyone else's, then you should restate your argument as "Morality cannot exist outside of my own religion."

I am an atheist and believe that most popular religions nowadays have some elements of truth to them, otherwise so many people wouldn't be following them. Just as there have been advances in medicine, science, and the arts over the past several millenia, there have also been advances to moral philosophy. Most atheists that I know of try to take the best moral teachings from various religions and eastern and western philosophy to build their own moral code. Some go so far as to write it down, just like your moral code is written down. Societies function based on shared moral values, whether or not those morals come from religion or philosophy. And if you still think that morality cannot exist outside the bounds of religion, take a look at these definitions from the Merriam Webster Dictionary:

Morality: a doctrine or system of moral conduct
Moral: of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior : ethical
Ethical: conforming to accepted standards of conduct
Ethics: a set of moral principles : a theory or system of moral values

It should be clear from the above definitions that morality does not require religion. You may feel and believe that any moral code outside of the bounds of your own religion is inferior, but you should at least admit that it can exist.

p.s. I wouldn't worry about your writing style. Your English is way better than some Americans I know of!

 

[Aquitaine]

Religion has always been "inspired" from, or based off the Moral standards of it's original people from day one, and changes as the people's mentality does. Generally speaking, in my opinion - as a society becomes more civilized, more educated, more prosperous and more safe, the mentality of the society "evolves" and religious authority slowly disbands.

Take what happened with Christianity; people were finding the "Moral standards" set by God as too aggressive and unjustified (ordering 3,000 people to be killed for building a small figure of a Calf out of their jewelry and worshipping it, and ordering the Israelites to kill all unarmed men and boys but to keep the virgin girls for themselves seemed a little too much as time went on), so they went and gave the religion a face-lift with the New Testament centered around not a cruel, aggressive, insecure God, but instead hippy Jesus.

It happens with other religions too, but instead they cherry-pick the nice verses and reject the nasty ones, purely to suit the mentality of the society as it progresses, however it can also go the other way too. In more hardcore "rough" areas of the world, they strictly abide by the more extreme teachings, and in the richer, more prosperous and civilized parts of the world, they choose the nicer verses and reject the extreme ones - that's generally speaking though, of course there are always exceptions.

Religion does and has always been inspired by the "morality" of the people first, not the other way around.

 

[logician]

"Oh...well that's unfortunate."

Actually, quite fortunate for me, because I lived thru many years of the alternative.

 

[Autodidact]

If you take away the fact that He is omnibenevelant then there is no problem.

Or omniscient, or omnipotent, or omnipresent. All you have to do is take away one of these, and there is no problem. However, your entire position was based on the assertion that God exists and is omni, omni, omni and omni. Now that we have established that this is not possible, your argument crumbles. We look forward to the forthcoming announcement of your deconversion.

Truthfully, we cannot describe God at all. That includes saying He exists.

And yet you have done so, over and over. Are you then not truthful?

So how can we know that He is omnibenevolent?

In fact we can know that He is not. Either that or He's not omniscient or not omnipotent or possibly not omnipresent. He's got to lack at least one of these qualities, if not more. He may also lack the quality of existence. Any of these are logically possible. What we have shown is that it's not logically possible that He exists and has all these qualities. Therefore your morality has no basis.

No. I see people behaving as people. My point was not that the religious are more moral, but that it is a reasonable conclusion to make as a religious person.

It's reasonable for a religious person to conclude something that's false? Well, that's religion for you, since religious people do this regularly.

I kill another human. That hurts them and the world. Not me.

I hate to ask this, but, are you possibly a psychopath? Because it hurts normal people a lot. In fact, having to kill another person is so traumatic for normal people that they never recover.

If it doesn't hurt me, why should I care?

Because it does, unless you are some kind of sociopath, in which case I don't see the point in trying to discuss morality with you.

I just thought I'd note that I don't actually think this way (since you don't seem to be able to comprehend the concept of Devil's Advocate).

You're trying to advocate for your position by maintaining something that you don't actually believe? Do you find that effective?

In common parlance, a devil's advocate is someone who takes a position he or she disagrees with for the sake of argument. This process can be used to test the quality of the original argument and identify weaknesses in its structure.

Are you taking a position that you don't actually agree with? Do you NOT actually believe that God is the only source for morality? I think maybe you don't comprehend the concept of Devil's Advocate.

Judaism is seen as a lot of things. Judging the content of something by how it is seen speaks nothing of its actual character.

Knock knock. Judaism is a religion. It has no actual character other than the beliefs of its adherents. That's what a religion is. Jews actually believe that there is one God and only one. Very few Jews believe that the material world is a part of God; rather they (we) tend to see God as being the creator of the world. It is possible to see God as all, including the world, and still be Jewish, but very few Jews do.

Is it still evil if He creates a solution to evil?

What is a solution to evil? If evil is solved, then it goes away and doesn't exist. So you're back to trying to persuade us that evil does not exist. Good luck with that.

For instance, if I enhance certain damaging traits in a group of bacteria but then create a drug that will enhance your immune system so that it will be able to fight the bacteria, then is it still evil?

Yes, if it caused suffering before the cure. Better (= less evil) just not to create the damaging traits in the first place, obviously.

After all, if I were to expose your immune system to the bacteria and then add the drug then your immune system would be stronger as a result.

Remember, if God is omnipotent, He could have just given me a stronger immune system to begin with. God is not limited by the problems we are.

I would propose that God created evil and created mankind as it's solution.

First, please take note that you just asserted that God created evil. That pretty much does away with Mr. Omnibenevolent, doesn't it. Second, good luck with persuading us that mankind is the solution to evil. Your job is getting harder by the minute.

Why not just create good? Because the greatest good would be to be like God and the sole thing that separates God (and us) from the rest of creation is the fact that we have freedom of choice. It's not free choice if both choices aren't equal.

Baloney. You can certainly freely choose between two unequal things.

If everything were good, then we would have been given good. When evil exists in contrast to good, then we choose good.

Unless we don't. At this point, you're just blathering, somewhat desperately, might I add.

I explained it to you. You didn't want to accept it as true. That's fine, it just means you value your ideas and beliefs above what might actually be true.

Actually, it means you're wrong.

*sighs* Again you fail to misunderstand the concept of Devil's Advocate. My point is not that abducting/rape/murder isn't wrong. My point is that it's not intrinsically evil.

Does adding the word "intrinsically" make any significant difference? Intrinsic or not, it's wrong. It exists. Therefore God is not omni, omni, omni and omni, as you require for your entire moral argument.

The worse thing you can say about it is that it hurts someone and makes the quality of their lives go down.

No, you can say it's bad. Get it?

To which I could ask why I should care.

Because you're a person.

It does not make the actions intrinsically (meaning that their very nature is) evil.

It doesn't matter whether it's intrinsic or not, and adding that word adds nothing to the discussion. Bad things happen. God lets them happen. God is either unable or unwilling to prevent that.

People like you (people who have this need to label things rather then simply practically relating to them or, when using them in communication, explaining them in their simplest form)

All people need to label things in order to be able to talk about them

are the same kind of people who will say that homosexuals should be killed.

Bull. Labeling things has nothing to do with killing people. In fact, back in reality, that place you visit on occasion, the people who say that homosexuals should be killed are...(wait for it)...religious.

People who just have to have these clearly defined, clear cut labels of what is and isn't.

We call those people "logical," "rational" or possibly "normal." You can't discuss things rationally without defining them. Defining things is not pathological; it's part of rational discourse.

There are moral standards, God gave perfect moral standards 3300 years ago to the Jews at Sinai.

Are you talking about the ten commandments? Perfect? Well, what do they tell us about this example? Do they prohibit rape? No. Sex with children? No. Killing? Unclear. They prohibit murder, which means unlawful killing, but since they don't tell us whether this killing is unlawful, they give no guidance on this point.

They do tell us, though, not to make a graven image of any thing on heaven or earth, and not to work on Saturday. Now those are moral foundations for you.

 

[Magic Man]

It's not. Hence my point. Morality outside of religion does not exist. I could do all sorts of things like Killing and what not so long as I found a justification for it.

You could do that even with religious morality.

You added on "as long as no one gets hurt in the process". Without religious morality, why should I care if someone else gets hurt?

Because you're human. This is the basis for all morality.